Studies in Literature and Language
Portia’s Role in William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice: A Feminist Study
Abstract
This research investigates the intricate role of Portia in William Shakespeare’s celebrated play, The Merchant of Venice. Portia is depicted as a complex character who embodies intelligence, wit, and agency within the constraints of the Elizabethan era. Through an analysis of her actions, speeches, and interactions with other characters, this study explores how Portia challenges societal norms, navigates gender expectations, and emerges as a significant force driving the plot. The study aims to provide an in-depth analysis of Portia’s influence on the narrative, her role in the themes of justice and mercy, and her position as a strong female protagonist in a male-dominated society. By examining these aspects, the research seeks to illuminate Portia’s enduring significance in literary history.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Bevington, D. (2002). Shakespeare: Script, stage, screen. Pearson Longman.
Bloom, H. (2010). The invention of the human. Riverhead Books.
Bloom, H. (Ed.). (2010). William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. Infobase Publishing.
Brown, J. R. (2000). Shakespeare and his comedies. Routledge.
Caldwell, E. M. (2014). Opportunistic Portia as Fortuna in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900, 54(2), 349-373.
Campbell, L. B. (2013). Portia’s power: Rhetoric, law, and equity in The Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare Studies.
Carroll, W. C. (2004). The Merchant of Venice: Texts and contexts. Bedford.
Erickson, P. (1991). Patriarchal structures in Shakespeare’s plays. University of California Press.
Garber, M. (2004a). Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice: The transubstantiation of the hag. Anchor.
Garber, M. (2004b). Shakespeare after all. Pantheon Books.
Greenblatt, S. (1997). Shakespearean negotiations: The circulation of social energy in Renaissance England. University of California Press.
Greenblatt, S. (2016). The Shylock problem. In The Norton Shakespeare. W. W. Norton & Company.
Halio, J. L. (2000). Understanding The Merchant of Venice: A student casebook to issues, sources, and historical documents. Greenwood Press.
Hasan, M. (2015). The eighteenth century and the rise of the English novel. International Journal of Literature and Arts, 3(2), 18-21.
Hasan, M. (2016). The rise of modernism: A new history of western modernism. Journal of Kirkuk University Humanity Studies, 11, 1-42.
Hasan, M. (2019a). Values of women as related to culture and society. Cross-Cultural Communication, 15(4), 35-39.
Hasan, M. (2019b). A thematic investigation into T. S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men:” with reference to textual approach. Critical Literary Studies, 1(2), 159-184.
Hasan, M. (2019c). The explication of mythology and ecology in Eliot’s “The Waste Land”. Studies in Literature and Language, 19(1), 30-36.
Hasan, M. (2020). Review of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. International Journal of Educational Theory and Practice, 18-21.
Hasan, M. N., & Hussein, S. A. B. (2015). The hurdles in front of women in expressing their voice in Eliot’s “The Waste Land”. International Journal of Literature and Arts, 3, 171-175.
Hasan, M. N., & Hussein, S. A. B. (2016). Dante’s “The Divine Comedy”, Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and Muhammed’s Isra and Miraj: A comparative study. International Review of Social Sciences, 4, 483-486.
Hasan, M. N., Noori, L. S., & Hamasalih, M. S. (2015). Mysticism and Sufism in T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”. Research on Humanities and Social Sciences, 5, 114-118.
Hasan, M., & Shamal, H. (2015). The hurdles in front of women in expressing their voice in Eliot’s “The Waste Land”. International Journal of Literature and Arts, 3(6), 171-175.
Hasan, M., Hsen, B., & Jalal, B. (2019). T. S. Eliot’s “Sweeney erect” revisited. Studies in Literature and Language, 19(2), 101-107.
Hasan, M., Lava, M., & Gashbin, B. (2020). Abuse practice of power in Orwell’s Animal Farm: A historical approach. CaLLs (Journal of Culture, Arts, Literature, and Linguistics), 6(1), 1-16.
Hasan, M., Mohammed, D., & Soran, D. (2020). Instances of meeting: Sherko Bekas’s “A Fall Letter” and T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”. International Journal of Educational Theory and Practice, 7-22.
Jardine, L. (1996). Reading Shakespeare historically. Routledge.
Korda, N. (2022). Shakespeare’s domestic economies: Gender and property in early modern England. University of Pennsylvania Press.
Marcus, L. S. (2004). I will have nothing else but only them: Portia’s divided wish in The Merchant of Venice. In Shakespeare’s comedy of love. Cambridge University Press.
Marcus, L. S. (2008). The Merchant of Venice. Oxford University Press.
McDonald, R. (2006). The Bedford companion to Shakespeare: An introduction with documents. Bedford/St. Martin’s.
Newman, K. (1991). Portia’s role in The Merchant of Venice: A study in misdirection. Shakespeare Quarterly.
Phoenix, A. (2021, October). Francis Bacon (Bassanio/Bellario) and Anthony Bacon (its titular character Antonio) and The Merchant of Venice.
Rackin, P. (1996). Stages of history: Shakespeare’s English chronicles. Cornell University Press.
Ryan, K. (2009). Shakespeare’s comedies. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Smith, B. (2016). Gender, race, and class in The Merchant of Venice. In The Cambridge companion to The Merchant of Venice. Cambridge University Press.
Smith, E. (1997). Gender and performance in The Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare Quarterly.
Smith, E. (2011). Portia’s ring: Gender and exchange in The Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare Quarterly.
Smith, J. (2023a). Shakespeare’s heroines: Analysis and commentary. Literary Press.
Smith, J. (2023b). Understanding Shakespeare: An analysis of his works. Literary Press.
Traub, V. (1992). The renaissance of heterosexuality. Routledge.
Wells, S. (2015). Shakespeare on stage and off. Cambridge University Press.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/13472
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
Copyright (c) 2024 Studies in Literature and Language
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Share us to: 
Online Submission: http://cscanada.org/index.php/sll/submission/wizard
Reminder
How to do online submission to another Journal?
If you have already registered in Journal A, then how can you submit another article to Journal B? It takes two steps to make it happen:
1. Register yourself in Journal B as an Author
Find the journal you want to submit to in CATEGORIES, click on “VIEW JOURNAL”, “Online Submissions”, “GO TO LOGIN” and “Edit My Profile”. Check “Author” on the “Edit Profile” page, then “Save”.
2. Submission
Go to “User Home”, and click on “Author” under the name of Journal B. You may start a New Submission by clicking on “CLICK HERE”.
We only use three mailboxes as follows to deal with issues about paper acceptance, payment and submission of electronic versions of our journals to databases: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
Articles published in Studies in Literature and Language are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY).
STUDIES IN LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE Editorial Office
Address: 1055 Rue Lucien-L'Allier, Unit #772, Montreal, QC H3G 3C4, Canada.
Telephone: 1-514-558 6138
Website: Http://www.cscanada.net; Http://www.cscanada.org
E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
Copyright © 2010 Canadian Academy of Oriental and Occidental Culture 
